SEC, Big 12 games nearly raise a bracket

It’s a shame Texas couldn’t be in the Big 12 North or this year’s Missouri couldn’t be last year’s Missouri.

Otherwise, what we’d have today in college football is, dare we say . . . a playoff (and it’s still pretty close to one).

It wouldn’t be the eight-team format Barack Obama may have to amend the Constitution to get implemented, and it would exclude USC (sorry) and Utah (“U” deserved better).

But it could have looked remarkably like the seeded “plus-one” model Bowl Championship Series commissioners rejected in the spring.

Imagine a national semifinal game between BCS No. 1 Alabama and No. 4 Florida in the Southeastern Conference title game.

You don’t have to imagine it, that’s the game being played today at the Georgia Dome.

And if Texas were 11-1 and in the North Division, the No. 3 Longhorns would be playing No. 2 Oklahoma for the Big 12 title and a berth in the Jan. 8 championship game.

But Texas is not so geographically aligned, and Missouri (9-3) is not the Missouri that entered last year’s Big 12 final needing only to defeat Oklahoma to earn a title-game berth.

What we have today is what we have, which is pretty good -- call it a three-out-of Final Four:

Alabama (12-0) vs. Florida (11-1) is bigger than an elephant’s ear.

Two SEC schools, ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the Associated Press media poll, are playing each other for a 99%-certain berth in the national title game.

It marks the 40th matchup of 1-2 in the AP poll and the first time it has happened in a conference title game.

Wouldn’t you like to see the BCS screw it up like this every year?

The players involved are top-of-the-linebacker and the style contrast could not be more intriguing: Florida’s speed against the girth of blue-collar Alabama -- Crimson Tide defensive lineman/forklift Terrence Cody’s nickname should be “The Human Eclipse.”

Except Alabama, as a team, isn’t exactly carrying a piano on its back.

Toss in that the game is being played on spring-loaded artificial turf and what we see may look like the Olympic trials.

“That’s going to be a fast track,” Florida Coach Urban Meyer said this week, “but the team we’re playing is going to be fast as well.”

Florida is championed by junior quarterback Tim Tebow, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, who stood up after the Gators’ lone loss against Mississippi and said you would never see a player play harder than he was going to play the rest of the year.

He has since led Florida to eight straight wins, crushing opponents by an average of 28 points, Tebow playing so inspirationally he is back on a very short list of Heisman candidates.

The post-Mississippi speech was lifted right out of a movie, with Tebow promising only maximum effort, not victories.

Tebow stayed in the locker room for an hour just to make sure his carefully crafted words struck the right tone.

“I didn’t want to make any brash statements or anything just on emotion,” he said.

Florida vs. Alabama also features Meyer and Nick Saban, coaches of impeccable quality. Both have already won national titles and both may eat nails for breakfast.

Even though Alabama is undefeated and No. 1, oddsmakers have listed Crimson Tide as 10-point underdogs against Florida, which resides three floors down in the BCS standings.

Oklahoma (11-1) vs. Missouri (9-3) in Kansas City is the bookend national semifinal -- at least for Oklahoma.

The caveat is that the other deserving participant, Texas, is watching from Austin, a casualty of a tiebreaker rule that had nothing to do with the BCS and everything to do with the Big 12.

Justice in Burnt Orangeville can still prevail, but only if Missouri wins. Note: Missouri hasn’t beaten Oklahoma since 1998.

Many will insist Oklahoma, if it wins, lucked its way in to the BCS championship because it lost to Texas, even though Las Vegas says Oklahoma would be favored if the schools played tomorrow.

“I still think that we have to go out there and prove something to everyone and prove to them that we do deserve to be at this game,” Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford said. “So I think it felt like it’ll give us some extra motivation this week.”

An unfortunate, yet interesting, sidebar is that Bradford -- billed “Fantastic Sam” by Oklahoma’s publicity machine -- will probably clinch the Heisman Trophy with a strong performance against Missouri.

And he would win it over Texas quarterback Colt McCoy. The BCS standings weren’t meant to break a Heisman tie.

There remains open, though, an escape hatch that could prevent a postseason fist fight.

Texas could win the Associated Press national title.

The Longhorns are No. 3 this week behind Alabama and Florida, and could move to No. 2 after the SEC title game.

Texas could then hope that Oklahoma beats the SEC champion in the BCS title game and voters see the merit in offering Texas a piece of the prize.

How could anyone in Norman complain?

USC and Utah would be left behind wondering what might have been; in the BCS there is usually collateral damage.

But the Trojans had their chance at Oregon State, while Utah could make a People’s Choice case if it could beat Florida or Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

If Utah can’t pull that off, as Hawaii couldn’t against Georgia in last year’s Sugar Bowl, then what was all that shouting about?

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chris.dufresne@latimes.com